Relief for stranded T&T seafarers

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Bavita Gopaulchan

20200522221857

20200522

Nalini Durgah

Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

The Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als work­ing aboard the Dis­ney Cruise Lines were moved to tears yes­ter­day af­ter the Min­istry of Na­tion­al an­nounced its de­ci­sion to al­low cruise ship work­ers to re­turn home be­fore the bor­ders are of­fi­cial­ly re­opened.

Nali­ni Dur­gah, a crew mem­ber at­tached to the Dis­ney Fan­ta­sy, has been strand­ed at sea along with 49 oth­er na­tion­als since March.

She told Guardian Me­dia her heart sunk yes­ter­day when she woke up to re­alise the cruise ship was docked 12 miles off the north­ern coast to re­fu­el at an oil rig.

“We knew that we were very close so it was sort of a bit­ter­sweet feel­ing where we know that we are close to home but not be­ing al­lowed en­try as yet, so it made us very sad,” Nali­ni said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Just af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Nali­ni’s at­ti­tude changed when the min­istry said it would al­low na­tion­als work­ing on cruise ships to re­turn home but on a “reg­u­lat­ed and sched­uled ba­sis.” The an­nounce­ment came as a shock to the crew mem­bers, as just four days ago the min­istry made it clear it was not grant­i­ng ex­emp­tions for na­tion­als on cruise ships.

“We are hap­py to come home to our fam­i­lies and there are many moth­ers here in tears of joy,” Nali­ni said then, not­ing she was ea­ger to hold her nine-year-old daugh­ter in her arms.

“We are just wait­ing to hear con­fir­ma­tion from our cap­tain when we will be able to get in. I am sure my daugh­ter is hap­py and elat­ed but I don’t want to give her any false news as yet so I want to make sure I know ex­act­ly when we will be com­ing in.”

Mean­while, Kevin Clarke, one of the 345 crew mem­bers at­tached to the Roy­al Caribbean cruise line, told Guardian Me­dia they too were re­lieved by the Gov­ern­ment’s change of heart.

“This news alone brought but­ter­flies to our stom­achs be­cause it was very frus­trat­ing and de­press­ing so the news made us feel like they an­swered our prayers,” Clarke said.

Yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Young said the sort­ing process is on­go­ing to iden­ti­fy all of the Trinida­di­an na­tion­als strand­ed on­board cruise ships. He said it has not been an easy task as the min­istry re­ceived a blan­ket ap­pli­ca­tion for 430 na­tion­als as op­posed to in­di­vid­ual ap­pli­ca­tions.

Young said he would en­gage in talks with Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram on how the re­turn of the na­tion­als would be han­dled.